Check this page every month for some stimulating lectures and conversations from the leading scientific minds. We'll only be posting items that we have actually viewed or listened to ourselves, so we hope you enjoy these as much as we did.

Craig Venter and team make a historic announcement: they've created the first fully functioning, reproducing cell controlled by synthetic DNA. He explains how they did it and why the achievement marks the beginning of a new era for science.

Spanish surgeons have announced that they have carried out the world's first full-face transplant. The hospital, in Barcelona, performed the surgery on a young man who lost his face in an accident five years ago. Since then, he'd been unable to swallow, speak or breathe properly

Fiery rings of ionised gas erupt from the sun in the first videos taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The satellite is delivering unprecedented views of the star, which could help untangle the mysteries of its magnetic field and improve forecasts of solar storms on Earth.